Thoughts on the Fractal Design R4 - alternatives?

I've had my Antec P180 for a good few years, and while it is nice and quiet, I don't find it very easy to work with. The cable routing is a pain in the ass in particular.

The R4 looks great, though stock cooling isn't great (I'd probably add another two quiet 120mm fans, front and rear which would fix that), and I'd prefer the USB ports on the front rather than the top, as my case sits under my desk at the moment.

Alternatives seem to be:

Corsair 550D (this one confused me, depending on the review I read, sometimes this has better cooling than the R4, other times worse)Corsair 500R - good cooling but kinda ugly IMO.

Key points are:

Quiet - this is top priorityNot ugly - unobtrusive black box is greatEasy to work withNot enormous - full tower is outNot crazy priced - up to £120 ish is fine

Any users have an opinion? Part of me says live with the P180 as once it's built, it does the job well, and I don't fiddle component wise much. It does collect a lot of dust though.

I haven't used the R4, but I'm using the Define Mini for my fileserver which is pretty similar and my only real complaint is that the space behind the motherboard is really small and it's a pain in the ass to run wires there and not interfere with the rear panel. When I was looking for a new case for my desktop (to replace a Sonata Solo), I was very tempted by the R4, but reviews said it had the same tight space constraints so I ended up passing on it. I decided on the NZXT H2 instead and the space behind the motherboard tray is still tight, but supposedly it actually has slightly more room than the R4. I really wish I had been able to try them out side by side first :-/

For cooling, I'm using a Noctua NH-U12P SE2 and two of their 120mm PWM fans in a push-pull config. One of the fans that came with the heatsink is in the "roof" of the case, blowing down into the "intake" of the CPU cooler. The other fan from the heatsink is on the back of the case, blowing out. All these fans are speed controlled from the motherboard.

There's also one of the stock case fans on the front, blowing across the hard drive. Finally, there's the other "stock" case fan set up as an intake on the side panel, running at the lowest possible speed via the included fan controller and keeping the GPU ventilated.

The top fan doesn't turn at all unless the CPU hits 60C or so, and all the other fans run at minimum speed until the same point (all controlled by motherboard headers). The overall effect is a low hum; one of the case fans has recently developed a bit of a chatter, I'll probably replace it with a 140mm Antec.

Various reviews note that the grommets around the cable holes in the R3 are a bit too easily dislodged. They are quite right, but equally, unless you're in and out of the thing weekly, it doesn't really matter. There isn't *that* much space behind the mobo tray, but for my relatively simple build, it wasn't a problem.

Looks wise the thing is your classic black box, the door on the front gives it a very clean look. There's no HDD activity LED at all, in case that bothers you. The overall feel is a bit less tank like than your typical Antec case, so it depends if that's worth the extra £30 for the P183 to you.

EDIT I didn't know the R4 was so much bigger, relatively speaking So I think all my comments about the R3 stand, apart from the "space behind the motherboard tray" which it sounds like you can ignore.

Back around Thanksgiving I built two boxen in Fractal cases. Mine in a Define XL and one for my fiance in a Define R4. Both were quite nice to put together and both are very quiet.

In the XL wiring was cramped because I ended up needing basically every modular cable (I originally found the XL because of its vast array of 3.5" bays) and the R4 was snug because I didn't spring for a modular power supply.

A sane build with only one or two storage disks and a modular supply should yield a clean easy build in either case.

I did make a point to put additional front and rear fans (maxing out locations in both) so as to run as slow as possible without things heating up too much.

My only real issue with either case is how incredibly bright the power LED is.

For anyone who builds a box with this case - if you end up with a lot of vibration, check if you have filled the bottom HD slot. After a lot of fiddling, I finally worked out that was what was causing a resonant vibration in mine.

I like this case for a lot of reasons, but I don't think it's any quieter than my old Antec P180.

I replaced the stock fans, but also added another two. I thought 3 x 140 mm fans at lower RPM would be quieter than 4 x 120 mm fans at higher RPM, but it seems not to be the case. Then again, human memory is notpriously poor, I really should have used my sound meter to check the noise level of the P180 before I took it apart.

I replaced the blue LED in my Define Mini with a green one. I then glued a red HDD LED (salvaged) to the side of the clear plastic surround, near the green LED. Now the area around the button glows green, but flashes pure red when the drives are being accessed. Totally ghetto method, but awesome result.

Shame I didn't think of that when I modded my Define XL - I just drilled a 3mm hole and stuck an LED in there for a HDD LED on that case.

The R4 is great, I've had mine for about a year. I've actually been thinking about replacing it with a Sugo SG10. Temps and noise levels will be worse but the R4 just feels so empty with my setup (air cooled single gpu + 2 SSDs). The case is very deep and sticks out from under my desk so I have to be careful the casters on my chair don't bump into the plastic front.

I've put my case on an offcut piece of 18mm MDF that is slightly larger than the footprint of the case. It stops me bumping the case with my computer chair castors, but also improves the airflow and reduces dust build up on the filters. And as an added bonus, it makes it easier to slide the case out from under the desk if I want to do something with the cabling at the back